Its parent Tata Motors is better known for making world's cheapest car, Nano, but subsidiary Land Rover on Friday stretched the benchmark on the other end of the spectrum when it launched the new Range Rover, the most expensive sports utility vehicle in India priced at Rs.
1.72-1.9 crore.

Mindful of the fact that the vehicle is not likely to find too many buyers in India at that price, the company has promised products in the Rs. 30 lakh price range to compete with the likes of BMW's X1 and Audi's Q3.

"The global trend is towards smaller engines and smaller vehicles," said Scott Dicken, global Range Rover brand manager. "We have to take that into consideration while developing models for the future."

Despite being owned by Tata Motors, India's largest automobile manufacturer by revenue, luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover remain fringe players in the fledgling Indian market behind the three German heavyweights - BMW, Audi and Mercedes Benz - largely due to a lack of compact SUVs in its portfolio.

"We are looking at smaller categories of vehicles and products are at initial planning stages," said Rohit Suri, vice-president, JLR India. "Among premium players we are well placed in the segments we are present. But we do not have smaller vehicles - a very important and dominant segment. Once we have products we will be better placed... perhaps be Number 1 as well."

The new Range Rover is the world's first all-aluminium monocoque SUV, and is powered by a 5-litre 510PS V8 supercharged petrol engine and a 4.4-litre 339PS V8 diesel engine. The company currently has 15 dealerships in the country.